Women for President: Media Bias in Nine Campaigns

7. Is America Ready?

7 Is America Ready? F or as long as women have aspired to the Oval Office, citizens, pollsters , and reporters have argued that America is not ready for a woman president.When the first widely known woman candidate for president, Victoria Woodhull, declared her intention to run in 1870, the newspapers noted, “She is rather in advance of her time. The public mind is not yet educated to the pitch of universal woman’s rights” (“Woman ’s Idea of Government” 1870). Such an attitude may seem uninteresting until one considers that over a hundred years later, similar sentiments still dominated press coverage. During Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s run for the White House in 1964, a columnist wrote, “There are a number of influential commentators here who believe that Senator Smith will thank all of her supporters . . . and say it is flattering to be considered for the high office . . . but that she is realistic to know that the country is not quite ready to elect a woman as president” (“Washington Forecast” 1964). Such an attitude cannot be dismissed as a relic from the 1960s. During Elizabeth Dole’s 2000 presidential campaign, the same opinion was expressed both by individuals and by pollsters. For example, an audience member at a campaign event said, “My gut is that the country is not ready for a woman president” (qtd., Berke 1999). Poll results have been used to make a similar argument. One observer reported, “While most Republicans say the country is ready to make a woman president, a full third say it is not” (ibid.). Surveys regularly document that people say they are more likely to vote 140 women for president for men than for women in a presidential race.The amount of bias against women presidential candidates, however, varies from between seven and fifteen percentage points depending on the survey and the wording of the question. Despite the dire predictions of the press and pollsters, there are many reasons to think America is ready to elect a woman president. Who Supports Women Who Run? Most contemporary polls about generic women candidates have shown a continuing but decreasing bias against women running for the presidency. The percentage of respondents saying they would not vote for a woman moved from roughly 64 percent of the population in the 1930s to about 10 percent in the 1990s (see Kenski and Falk 2004). Since the nineties it has remained roughly in the 10 percent range, sometimes dropping a little lower and sometimes rising a bit higher. Who comprises this persistent 10 percent of the population who say they would not vote for a woman, and who are the people who consistently support women candidates? Among the variables that have been shown to predict attitudes about women in office, the sex of the respondent has been the best documented. Mostsurveysshowthatwomentendtobemorefavorablydisposedtoward awomancandidatethanaremen,forallkindsofofficesincludingthepresidency .The finding that women are more likely to favor women—and men to favor men—is not unexpected. Social scientists have long documented the role homophily plays in persuasion and positive opinion formation. Homophily refers to the concept that the more similar you are to people, themorelikelyyouaretopersuadethem.Thus,womenmaybemoreeasily persuaded by women candidates and more likely to support them. The finding that women are more pro-women and men are more promen may also stem from the greater awareness generated by the women’s rights movement, which has highlighted for many women the lack of female representation in government. In other words, because of the women’s movement, women may be more sensitive to the fact that there are very few women in higher office; as a result women may be more inclined to support women who aspire to public service. Moreover, studies have shown that women tend to have less traditional attitudes than men and therefore may be more willing to support women in non-stereotypical roles. The converse may also help explain the phenomenon. For example, Susan Gluck Mezey (1978), a professor of political science, found that when people were asked what disadvantages women have in holding political office, the women cited bias against them, but men pointed to is america ready? 141 inadequacies they thought women had, such as being emotional, weak, and interested in trivialities. In a similar vein, two other political scientists , Leonie Huddy and Nayda Terkildsen (1993), found that men rated warmth and expressiveness (qualities typically associated with women) as less crucial for good politicians than did...